


where instinct fails, intellect must venture

by lacrimalis



Series: broken flower chains [2]
Category: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, Child Neglect, Gen, Origin Story, Rating subject to change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27274204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacrimalis/pseuds/lacrimalis
Summary: Something strikes Leon as familiar about Jolene.
Relationships: Margot & Wolf (Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts), White Blazer Billions & Wolf
Series: broken flower chains [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860778
Comments: 7
Kudos: 59





	where instinct fails, intellect must venture

**Author's Note:**

> I reference my original reasoning for this in a work I never got around to publishing, but from hereon out White Blazer Billions is Leon and Black Blazer Billions is Bill. Y'all I'm not calling them both Billions, do you know how CONVOLUTED the narration would get? We don't have TIME for that we've got to TRIAGE SEASON 3.
> 
> Anyway without further ado: LEON BACKSTORY!!!

Considering his own peculiarities and his history of estrangement within the pack, Leon tries to keep an open mind about others whom conventional expectation may label as unusual.

But the mixed pack of humans and mutes which visits the observatory is truly, _deeply_ unusual.

What troubles him most deeply is the one they call Jolene, though he cannot pinpoint the problem. Every time he looks at her, it inspires in him a strange coldness, followed by a counterpoint of heat at the back of his skull which feels unaccountably familiar and which he distantly identifies as _terror._

Bill, stars love him, picks up on his discomfort with all the doting intuition of years at one another's side. Perhaps the threat display Bill makes by jumping on the table and shouting in Jolene’s face during their dinner performance is a bit unnecessary, but… 

Leon can’t deny that it’s satisfying to join in, as childish as it is.

Bone Ripper is the pack’s spokesmute, but every member has spoken at least once – with the frustrating and conspicuous exception of Jolene. Leon thinks if only she would speak, perhaps he could place the strange familiarity he senses in her face, her hair, her glaring countenance. He does not credit Bone Ripper's assertion that she is… simple, either. Her gaze is sharp and alert, and in fact she seems to be the most cautiously observant of them all. Perhaps she is the pack’s lookout, and Bone Ripper simply downplayed her importance to conceal it.

It is not an unwise strategy, Leon supposes, when in the presence of a strange and unfamiliar pack.

Well. Perhaps if the evening goes well, Bone Ripper will deign to permit Leon to speak with Jolene and lay his questions to rest.

Ideally in private.

–

The nonsensical sequence of disasters that befalls the room following Bill and Leon's performance is monumentally disorienting. Leon has difficulty shaking the impression that he is trapped in some kind of gravity well of causal absurdity.

First Bone Ripper takes the stage and spews forth the most audacious falsehoods the Newton Wolves have ever heard. Then Meghan bursts into the dining room and announces that dessert has escaped. A pity – Leon knew Bill was looking forward to playing with this particular morsel – but more pressing is the only logical explanation: that Bone Ripper's pack has contravened upon the Newton Wolves’ hospitality by releasing the Mod Frog. And when _that_ occurs to him – 

“You let him _go?!”_

The dining hall falls silent. All eyes turn to Jolene, and Leon finds her voice no less familiar than her scent, or any other individual element of her appearance.

It is preoccupying.

It is maddening.

And then she carries her feet onto the pristine dining table, and invites the Newton Wolves to hunt her, in place of her not-pack.

Leon is stunned speechless, so it must be Bill who gives the command – because in the next moment the Newton Wolves barrel through the observatory doors and into the night, in pursuit of Jolene. Leon's body feels frozen in place, even as the rest of the girl’s motley crew stumble after the hunting party to provide what meager assistance they can against a pack of angry wolves.

It is all so hauntingly familiar. That narrow back retreating, that wild hair flying…

Where has Leon seen the like before?

He shakes himself from his strange reverie. It's been a long time since last he lost awareness of his surroundings so completely. The observatory is cavernous quiet, lonely and dark and abandoned, and in it Leon stands alone.

His spinning head and pounding heart aside, Leon cannot abandon the hunt his pack has set out on – nor can he forgive this transgression upon their hospitality. He wastes no further time on impossible puzzles, and he hastens to give chase.

–

Leon would like to believe he is best known for his intellect, or his refined mannerisms, or his fair and measured leadership. But allowing himself to think _that_ wishfully would be folly, and so he reminds himself every day that his pack knows him best for his bloodlust.

Leon has had plenty of insults flung at him, every form of censure and hazing employed in the pack's attempts to condition away his feral behavior short of excommunication – and that only foregone because if they abandoned him, there would be no superficial pack bonds to protect them from his raging instincts. Or so they must think.

But Leon does not attack others indiscriminately, or without provocation. In point of fact he abhors fighting. Partly because he thinks it unrefined and animalistic, but mostly because in a fight he has difficulty controlling himself. To hear others tell it, when threatened he enters a bestial, murderous fugue, claws and teeth unchecked and insensate to calls for reason.

And regrettably the accounts of others are all he has, because Leon does not remember these states after emerging from them.

This is why Leon doesn't fight, and why he lingers behind during hunts. He handles logistics, oversees the playing field, holds down the fort. He knows the pack still whispers behind his back, despite Bill's best efforts, but so long as he never takes point in these matters, neither will Leon ever be forced to humiliate himself again by allowing the pack to see him at his worst.

Yet the curiosity of Jolene is not something he can leave in the hands of his excitable pack. If they rip out her throat before Leon can solve the mystery of her familiarity –

For some reason the thought wrenches Leon's gut with nauseous terror, a trembling dread.

He cannot allow that.

And though he is loath to give into instinct, he must take point. In this, if nothing else.

He follows his nose. He can identify the scent of every single one of his pack members with familial clarity, and for a moment he fears he won't find her – but Jolene’s scent cuts through the rest like he's known it all his life: dirt, skin, sweat. Flowers.

Wolf hide.

Leon cuts through the trees and arrives at the head of the pack beside Bill. For a moment Bill looks surprised to see him – but the midst of a hunt is not the time to question Leon's newfound sense of initiative. Instead Bill responds to his unexpected arrival by staying close – like he's always done.

With Bill at his side, Leon hopes he won't lose himself.

They follow Jolene's scent to a clearing in the woods, in the center of which is a large tree. Out here in the open, in what is evidently her natural element, Leon is struck all over again by her scent. The impression of wolf hide is unmistakable now. Flower pollen seems to fill his head.

Jolene emerges from behind the tree, a staff of some kind in her hand. And she is wearing something… 

“Is that… skin?”

It is, he realizes. She wears a cloak made of wolf skin. Flowers and wolf hide. Dirt and sweat.

"I hate wolves," Jolene says.

Leon pounces.

And the world goes dark.


End file.
